by M. Dalto
He wasn’t going to start now. Not as his eyes snagged on exactly what he was looking for.
Upon the central—most reading desk was a chronicle of everything the Empire stood for. Its history, good and bad—its Prophecy.
The Annals.
“That’s it,” Sarayna whispered, taking a step towards it just as he had. As if its power called to her as it still did to him. The strength of the book could not be denied.
“Have you ever seen it before?”
She shook her head. “Until now, there was a part of me that wondered if it actually existed. I wondered if it was just a story told to keep you Empireborn in line at bedtime.”
He smirked slightly. “One day, Princess, you will be able to tell the same stories to your own offspring.”
She gave him a smoldering glance out of the corner of her eye, and Reylor’s smirk grew as he continued approaching the book.
There was a time when he would have given anything to destroy it and the information it contained—his own form of personal vengeance. Only once he had attempted to do so and experienced the true power it possessed...he became almost fearful of it.
Now, as it sat before him, he understood why his family’s people had given their lives to protect it.
“Let’s go home,” he breathed as he extended his hands towards the jewel-encrusted, leather-bound volume.
“Did you have to go and destroy the door?”
In unison Reylor and Sarayna spun around to face the speaker whose voice cleaved the library’s silence, and his eyes just had enough time to rest upon Razen’s before a power unlike any he had ever experienced, especially from the former Councillor, engulfed him—engulfed them both. He felt the air from his lungs catch as the passageway through his neck began to grow smaller and smaller...as though an invisible hand had him by the throat and was slowly gripping harder. His hands reached up to claw that grip away, but he only contacted his own skin. Still, that didn’t stop him from trying, his nails running along the column of his neck in an attempt to do something—anything—to regain control of his breathing.
A glance to the side showed him Sarayna was suffering the same fate, the color in her cheeks rising as she struggled to breathe.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
“It was almost too easy,” Razen mused as he stepped closer, barely raising his own hands as his power around them intensified. “Did you really think two guards would be enough?”
Razen stopped before Reylor with a sinister gleam in his eye before he raised his hand, and both Reylor and Sarayna were pulled from the floor, forced to hang as that power around their necks threatened to end them, right then and there.
He couldn’t say anything—every breath was precious, and he didn’t dare waste it.
Sarayna was worse off.
Gods, what had he done?
Razen sneered when the soft whiz and a loud thunk of the arrow now embedded in the desk where the Annals rested, thrumming between the Councillor and Lord Steward. Razen turned towards its source with a mixture of shock and fury.
The sender of that arrow didn’t falter as Reylor looked up as the form at the library’s entrance readied the next arrow.
“This ends now, Razen!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Saratanya had her arrow nocked and aimed at her former lover’s forehead. It had been quite some time since last she held a bow, but as she discovered with most things since her return to the Empire, it was akin to riding a bike.
Her target stood before her, holding the life of her own son in one hand, and her granddaughter’s in the other. It was quite the web they wove, this royal line to the Empire, but in the end all roads led to this moment.
Razen, former Lord Steward to the Empire, self-proclaimed Councillor to the Crown Prince and Queen Empress, and now advisor to the source of the Empire’s turmoil, had betrayed his own bloodline. It was a convoluted ploy which began before she had left years ago—no, not left.
He had sent her away without a choice, and now they were all paying the price.
His eyes, once a gorgeous blue, now burned with a dark red fury—the mark of a Betrayer to the Empire; she never would have expected it from the soft-spoken man she once knew. Razen gave her a look that pierced straight through to her heart, but Saratanya squared her shoulders and straightened her arrow’s aim.
“Tanya…so it is true. You have returned.” The smile on his face was a mixture of smug resentment and complete amusement.
“Let them go, Razen,” she demanded, refusing to take her eyes from him despite her surroundings. She had never been beyond the tree line, as the Borderlands were declared enemy territory to the Empire some two thousand years ago, but here they were, the four of them—three generations of the royal line—betraying their Prophecy for the greater good.
“I can’t do that, Empress,” he mocked, taking a step away from his captives while they hung in mid-air, each with their hands struggling at their necks as though trying to remove an invisible grip before their next breath was their last. “They’ve attempted to steal something within my possession, and I cannot leave them unpunished.”
“Do not move another step,” she warned, pulling the string of the bow tight. “The Annals were never yours to begin with—you cannot claim them as your own now!”
For his sake, he heeded her warning and stopped, but the look in his eyes told her he was focusing on other objectives.
His magic had grown dark since last she knew him, she could sense that much, but she hadn’t completely understood what he was capable of until just now.
This was not the man she had given her heart—her body—to so long ago.
Granted, their relationship was not what one would have considered orthodox. Alas, even her husband Axell, Razen’s own brother, gave his blessing to their triangle, and as such they lived in unison, content and wanting nothing more than each other’s comfort and affections...
Until the day Axell disappeared.
When he first went missing, Tanya believed the worst had happened. Axell was on a routine ranging mission to the Borderlands and failed to return. However, the longer he was gone, and with the information she received about the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, she began to fall into a pit of despair, believing perhaps she was the reason he decided not to return. His absence consumed her, and she became weak, refusing to eat, unable to sleep, and inevitably abandoning her duties as the Empress and as a mother...
She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs of memories in order to fully focus on the current moment.
“Your deceit has caught up to you, Razen, and now you will pay for your crimes.”
“What crimes might those be, Empress?” he scoffed.
Looking to Reylor, the younger of her twins, hanging by a literal thread, she began to remember what she had been told, and how foolish she was to believe the lies Razen fed her. When her son presented her with his father’s locket, the mate to the one she wore herself, he informed her it was retrieved from skeletal remains discovered in the dungeons beneath the castle in the Borderlands. Whatever Axell may have done, dying in the cell of that dungeon was not a fair ending.
“You’ve deceived the Empire with your trickery and lies,” she accused. “You have manipulated those loyal to you, those who trusted you...” Her voice cracked with emotion. “Those who cared for you have suffered the most. You betrayed me, murdered your own brother, and I will not allow you to do the same to my sons!”
Razen smirked at her accusations. “Reylor was a victim in his own right. You cannot blame me for showing him the path that he would have inevitably chosen to follow.”
Tanya cursed herself for her carelessness. Through Razen’s sinister influence as the Empire’s Councillor, Reylor was led to believe he had a dream—a premonition—about the Empress before his brother’s dream. The concept of anyone other than the Crown Prince knowing of the Empress’ existence was no less than betrayal to the Emp
ire, and through these manipulations Reylor rejected the Prophecy and attempted to retrieve the Empress himself. When he was inevitably banished for his actions, his obsession did not end and he went so far as to kidnap the Empress, curse her by unimaginable means, and destroy the Prophecy the Empire required in order to prosper.
Her attention shifted towards her granddaughter, Sarayna—her namesake, and the very product of her uncle’s obsession. The dark magic Reylor used upon Sarayna’s mother shredded the very fibers of the Prophecy, setting them in reverse. Where twin princes were to be born to the Empire, Sarayna entered the world prior to her brother, destined for an Emperor of her own. Her twin, however, retained the dark magic infused by Reylor, and became heir of the Borderlands and yet another pawn for Razen.
“Let them go,” she again commanded. “You have no need for them—not anymore.”
“What would you offer me in return, Empress?” He smirked knowingly.
“I am here, Razen—that is my offer. Let’s finish this as we should have years ago.”
“Oh, Tanya, I am far from finished, but since you asked so politely...”
He snapped his fingers and his captives fell to the ground. While her attention was intent on Razen, she watched from the corner of her eye as Reylor gathered Sarayna in his arms and brought her out of the line of fire.
Would Sarayna be safe with him? Of course—Reylor was no longer the enemy. Now there were two less lives she would need to worry about.
“Now, will you please put the arrow away?” Razen asked with false concern. “I would hate for it to get in the way...”
“Not on your life,” she retorted though she did lower it slightly—not because he asked, but because her arms were tiring from holding the string taut for so long.
“Fine, we will have it your way.” He shrugged and took another step closer but stopped as she raised the arrow. His arms went up in surrender, but she knew he was far from helpless.
“We’re not going to get very far if you won’t let me near you.”
“You’re not coming anywhere near me. What have you done, Razen?”
“How many times must I remind you that everything I have done has been for the best of the Empire?”
“Yes, but what Empire are you referring to? The one we built together, or the new one you have decided to build yourself?”
He smiled at her, but the same smile that used to take her breath away now made the bile in her stomach rise in her throat. She knew what he was capable of, but whether she wanted to actually hear it from him was another situation altogether.
“Perhaps it is time you began answering questions, Saratanya. You already seem to know so much about what I have been up to, perhaps it’s time you explained to me what brings you back?”
“Other than the fact you tried your best to keep me away?”
“I was saving your life.”
“You were damning me to solitude and taking my sons with you!”
“It was not my fault you neglected your duties as a mother. They needed someone to guide them, and instead you allowed yourself to wallow in self-pity when your husband disappeared...”
“The pity you created!” Tanya brought her arrow down, now aiming it for Razen’s chest. “Perhaps I should pierce you through like you shattered me.”
“If it would make you feel better.” He moved his hands to the collar of his tunic and ripped the material apart down the length of his chest.
“Perhaps now you’ll feel as I did when you chose to mourn Axell instead of embrace me. I was there for you, Tanya. I was always there for you...”
“Mother, finish this!” Her hesitation must have been obvious, for she heard Reylor shout from the corner he and Sarayna had retreated to.
Razen grinned at his nephew’s outburst. “Yes, Saratanya. Let us finish this.” He removed the remnants of his torn tunic, shrugging the sleeves from his forearms, leaving himself bare from the waist up. “But what’s one lovers’ quarrel compared to all the others?”
“You are no longer my lover.” Tanya tried her hardest to ignore the flush spreading across her cheeks. There was too much at stake, and too much history between them, to make any of this an easy decision. She would not allow Razen to leave this room, not when there was an Empire that still needed protecting.
“I loved you,” she confessed as she heard her voice waver. “I trusted you, and you betrayed me in the worst manner possible.”
A darkness crossed Razen’s face. “Axell was weak and bore weak offspring. Only through me were your sons able to thrive, and so too because of me do you have grandchildren to call your own. It was all because of me, Tanya—not Axell, me. I gave him the tools that brought you here, I deserved to have you in my bed—I should have given you your sons...”
“Enough!” She took a step forward, pulling the bow’s string as tight as it would go, training the arrow back towards his face.
“Razen, former Lord Steward of the Empire, you are hereby charged with the murder of the Crown Prince Axell, defamation of the Prophecy of Fire and Light, and complete betrayal to the Empire and its inhabitants. Do you confess to the charges against you?”
“Saratanya, former Queen Empress of the Empire, I would commit every charge against me the rest of my lifetime if it meant I would be delivered by your judgment.”
“Consider your judgement delivered.”
Whispering a silent prayer, she released the arrow in a flash of white light while the twang of the bow’s string resounded throughout the hall around them.
Chapter Forty-Eight
“I don’t think so.”
Reylor had barely caught his breath when he turned towards the sound of the voice behind them. A voice he hadn’t heard in years. Decades.
Master.
Any potential pleasantness for their reunion was short-lived. For that arrow—the arrow Saratanya so surely aimed towards Razen’s waiting chest—was deflected.
No—more like reflected.
Directly back towards the Queen Empress.
“No!” Three identical shouts of protest resounded around him. His own, Sarayna’s...
He swore he heard Razen’s pleas with their own.
Regardless of who said what...it wasn’t enough.
Faster than an arrow should have flown, it returned to its sender and embedded itself deep in her chest, directly through her heart.
Reylor couldn’t move, but not because of any magic holding him in place.
Shock.
Utter and complete shock kept him from moving towards his mother. To seeing what he could do to help her—to save her. But there would be no assistance for the Queen Empress. Not with the power Reylor had witnessed...not with the male behind him working with the one beside him.
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Razen snarled as he confronted the older man approaching him. Reylor was lucky he could hear anything over Sarayna’s sobs where she lay in his arms. Over the roaring in his own ears.
“A casualty of war, Razen,” Master assured him smoothly. “She would have done the same to you.”
At that Reylor dared a glance up, to finally lay eyes on his former mentor who had left him all those years ago. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised when he realized he hadn’t changed a bit since last he saw him. The dark hair, greying at his temples, or the red eyes glimmering beneath those dark brows—this was the same man who had helped Reylor in his greatest time of need.
Now he was helping Razen.
“It has been a while, Reylor,” Master said by way of greeting, and the smile the Lord Steward received almost felt genuine.
Reylor was quiet. Observant. Doing everything he could from attempting to slit his throat, but with Sarayna there—he couldn’t put her at risk.
His silence made Master’s smile falter slightly. “Nothing, eh? That’s no way to greet an old friend.” A glance to Razen showed a flicker of displeasure in his eyes. “You’ve clearly taught your son no manners over the years.”
Even Sarayna’s sobs halted at Master’s words.
If it wasn’t for Razen’s answering growl of warning he may have thought he imagined it.
“You never told him,” Master observed, amusement in his tone.
At that, Reylor made himself stand. Forced Sarayna to stand with him, but kept her close, protectively angled behind him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he finally asked, his voice low but unwavering.
“It truly is a pity your mother never told you, but I have to wonder if she even knew.” the old mage mused as he walked towards Saratanya’s still form. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, Reylor—did you truly believe Razen just wanted to share her bed out of love?”
Reylor’s gaze, blazing with a rage he didn’t know he still possessed, fell upon Razen at Master’s admission, the former Councillor already looking at him.
“Don’t think you were the first to ever use the spell that was cast upon Alexstrayna.”
If Reylor wasn’t holding onto Sarayna he was certain he’d have fallen as the floor was pulled out from underneath him. He always knew there something different about his upbringing—something off. He believed it was due to losing his parents so young, but if Axell was never truly his father...
“The former Crown Prince took it upon himself to venture beyond the tree line when he started to suspect something was wrong,” Master added casually, as if he could read Reylor’s thoughts. “He was a fool to come here alone, and not expect someone waiting for him.”
“You allowed him to walk into his death,” Reylor growled to Razen, and only then did he slowly turn to face Master, “and you held the blade.”
“I didn’t stab him.” He sighed. “That would have been too quick. Locking him in the unused dungeon cells and allowing him to starve to death...only the best for Leminol’s line.”
Reylor didn’t recognize the name, didn’t have time to ask. His brain was already a maelstrom of thoughts and memories, but only one remained at the forefront. Only one occurrence that never made sense with everything else he had endured.